Singer Alfie Boe tells how he left a female fan "incredibly embarrased" after
hearing her mobile phone ring in his concert

It is a modern-day blight on theatre and concerts, but it appears one opera singer is on a crusade to halt mobile phone rudeness.

Alfie Boe, the tenor, has told how he left a female fan “incredibly embarrassed” after hearing her mobile phone ring during his performance, confiscating it and speaking to her mother in front of the audience.

He has now adopted a policy of “leaping” off stage to accost fans whenever he hears a telephone, in an attempt to stop the nuisance of loud ringing.

His manager told the Telegraph Boe had performed the stunt in front of audiences of 10,000 people, leaving culprits red-faced and inspiring a “massive round of applause” from the crowd.

Boe made the disclosure in an interview with the Yorkshire Post, saying: “The lady with the phone was so incredibly embarrassed that I don’t think she’ll ever take a phone to a concert again.”

The singer told the newspaper he was halfway through a concert in Cardiff when he heard a “loud ringing noise and spotted a woman trying to switch of her phone”.

So I walked down into the audience, made my way along her row, and introduced myself,” he said. “I asked if I could have a look at her phone and pressed the redial button. It started buzzing at the other end. Then someone picked up, and it was the woman’s mother.”

He added he had put the phone onto its loudspeaker, asking the audience to shout out his name to convince her he was mid-concert.

His manager, Neil Ferris, told the Telegraph Boe had already performed the stunt around a dozen times and intended to continue.

“He has refined his act now,” he said. “Virtually every time a mobile phone goes off in his concerts and he hears it, either in a quiet piece of music or between songs, he’ll look at his band and hold his hand up for them to stop.

“Then he says ‘who’s is that?’ or ‘who’s phone rang?’ in front of 10,000 people.

“He will literally leap off the stage, vault over the barrier, go past security and grab the phone from whoever it is to say hello.

“If he sees someone taking a photo with their mobile phone he’ll do the same, except he takes it back up on stage with him, gathers the band around and takes a selfie.

“People think he’s really angry and go bright red with real embarrassment, but it’s just his sense of humour. He always gets a massive round of applause for doing it and gives it back with a hug.”

He added: “I think people forget to turn their mobiles off, and then when it rings they can never find it in time to answer it or switch it off and get brighter and brighter red.”

Boe is the latest in a line of celebrities who have taken a stand against interruptions from mobile phones.

In 2011, Kevin Spacey lambasted an audience member in character as Richard III after hearing a mobile phone ringing.

The late Richard Griffiths is known to have twice ordered a member of the public out of the theatre mid-performance, after they committed the same sin.

Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig staged a double intervention whle appearing together in A Steady Rain on Broadway in 2009, after two phones were off in one performance

Jackman told the first audience member “You want to get that? You want to get it? Grab it. I don’t care”, while Craig told a second offender to “just get the phone” moments later.

Last year, Diana Quick, the Brideshead Revisited actress, stayed in character in The American Plan to tick off the owner of a ringing mobile phone, saying pointedly to a fellow actor: “That’s an awful habit.”